Highland Creek

Highland Creek is Wind Cave's backcountry marathon — an 8.6-mile one-way traverse that takes you through practically every landscape the park has to offer. You'll start in open mixed-grass prairie where bison herds graze unbothered, then drop into ponderosa pine forests that smell like butterscotch on warm days. The trail follows Highland Creek through riparian corridors thick with cottonwoods and willows, crossing the creek multiple times along the way. This isn't a manicured path — expect sections of faint trail, tall grass brushing your legs, and stretches where you're navigating by instinct as much as by markers. The payoff is the sheer wildness of it: you'll likely see more pronghorn than people. This trail rewards hikers who want genuine solitude and don't mind earning it with a full day's effort and some route-finding savvy.